It Gets Even Uglier In Canada
The Province of Alberta, the epicenter of the Canadian oil bust, may be sliding into something much worse than a plain-vanilla recession. And it’s not exactly perking up the rest of Canada.
Layoffs are already cascading through the oil patch, as companies are retrenching and adjusting to the new reality. New vehicle sales are plummeting. And home sales are taking a broadside.
In August so far, total home sales in Calgary plunged 28% from a year ago, on flat prices. Condo sales collapsed 39%, with the median price down 8%, according to theCalgary Real Estate Board. Year-to-date, total home sales in Calgary are down 25%; condo sales 30%. And those condos that did sell spent 30% longer on the market than condos did a year ago, as sellers hang on by their fingernails to the illusion of wealth, and sales are stalling.
And the Business Barometer Index for all of Canada, which measures the optimism among small businesses, dropped again in August for the third month in a row. An index level between 65 and 70 indicates that the economy is growing at its potential. But now it hit 56.7, the lowest level since April 2009.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which produces the index, blamed the commodity bust but added additional sectors, particularly those that are considered absolutely crucial for the hopefully coming economic recovery in the second half: construction, transportation, and retail.
The index dropped in 7 of 10 provinces, even in British Columbia, which was weighed down by “domestic conditions, coupled with weakening economic prospects in Asia.”
And that feverishly expected rebound of GDP in the second half from recessionary levels in the first half? Small business owners don’t see it. What they see is a continued downturn.
But it’s in Alberta where small business optimism has totally crashed. The Index dropped 3.5 points in August to 40.4, the worst level since March 2009, and just one such step above the historic low of 37, of February 2009, the very bottom of the Financial Crisis.
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